Tim Loughton: Why does my right hon. Friend think that the Minister claims that a Select Committee, which already has the power to investigate all sorts of things in this House, is in some way superior to a judicial determination by a court? Only this week, Sir Geoffrey Nice, a distinguished QC who prosecuted Milošević, said that under the International Criminal Court Act 2001, UK courts are competent to prosecute the offence of genocide. The provision is there—we should surely be using it, not dismissing it. I come back to amendment 3B. We bent over backwards to answer every single question that the Government laid on the last time we debated this. Under the amendment, the courts cannot strike down trade deals anymore. The Government set the terms of the referral and the level of evidence required to pass the barrier. All that is handed back to Ministers. All the court will do is decide on genocide, and then it is up to Ministers and Parliament to decide what to do. We do not even tell Ministers in this amendment that they should do anything other than at some point come back and ask Parliament. That seems completely reasonable and puts the power in the hands of Parliament.
We have a very limited amount of time, and I am very sad today that the Government have chosen not to allow us to vote on the amendment. I am not voting on my amendment either. I oppose the Government’s amendment because, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) suggested, I think it will lead to much more vexatious complaint and all sorts of human rights stuff piling through.
Today should have been a chance to stand tall—to send a signal to those without hope all over the world, whether the Uyghurs or the Rohingya. Instead of providing a beacon of light and hope, we have today gone into the dark corridors of procedural purdah. We need to emerge.